Use These Windows Built-in Cleanup Tools to Free up Disk Space

The internal hard drive on the computer has a space limit. When you save more and more files on the drive, the available space will become less and less. The system drive (usually drive C:) is the same.

When C: drive runs out of space or the free space of a data drive is insufficient, you can use a disk cleanup tool to remove the junk files to free up disk space.

Is there a built-in cleaner in Windows 10 or Windows 11?

Of course, yes. Windows has built-in Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense to help free up disk space. If you don’t want to use a third-party cleanup tool to remove junk files like temporary files, you can try these two tools.

Use Disk Cleanup to Free up Disk Space in Windows 10/11

Disk Clean-up is a computer maintenance utility that is built in Windows. It is designed to free up disk space on a computer’s hard drive. You can use this tool to detect and calculate how much free space can you get on your specific drive, then you can choose which type(s) of files will be removed.

Here is how to use Disk Cleanup to free up disk space:

Step 1: Press Windows + S to call out the search box and search for disk cleanup. The Disk Cleanup app should be the first search result. You need to click it to open it.

Step 2: Expand Drives, then select the drive you want to free up space. Here, we select the C: drive. This will help you clean up system files.

Step 3: This tool will begin to calculate how much space you will be able to free on the C: drive.

Then, you will see an interface pops up, with a Files to delete list. You can see which kinds of files are detected and can be removed. You can also see how much space they are taking up on the C: drive. You can check the files you want to delete, then click OK to continue.

Step 4: Click the Delete Files button to confirm the operation.

Step 5: The Disk Cleanup utility will begin to clean up unnecessary files on the C: drive. You can wait until the process finishes. After that, your selected unnecessary files will be removed. You will get some free space on the C: drive.

You can repeat the above steps to free up space for other drives if necessary.

Clean up system files using Disk Cleanup

If you want to free up more space, you can choose to delete system files. Here we go:

Step 1: Click the Clean up system files button in Disk Cleanup.

Step 2: Select the file types to remove.

Step 3: Click OK.

Use Storage Sense to Free up Space on Drive C:

You can also use Storage Sense to free up disk space on the C: drive.

Storage Sense can automatically free up drive space by getting rid of the files you don’t want to use, including the temporary files and items in Recycle Bin.

You can use this Windows built-in cleanup tool to free up disk space on C:. You can also use it to release OneDrive space.

Bottom Line

These are 2 Windows built-in cleanup cleaners for you to get rid of unnecessary files and free up disk space. Of course, you can also manually delete unwanted files from your computer to get more free space.

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